Another Idea

The Bears made it to the table Saturday morning.  The game didn't finish but everyone had fun.  Some bears got scared early and "ran away" while others were very brave and were in several battles.  Bears got ambushed from the woods and Leader Bears encouraged their friends to fight on.  No pictures were taken. 

A Beary Simple Wargame is complex enough for my 2nd grader.  The Kindergartner might be able to understand some of the consequences but definitely isn't playing with a strategy. The pieces were all robust enough to be handled/dropped by the 2 year old.  I'd call it a success.  

I re-read The Far Side of the World.  I think it's a little dice heavy.  Each unit has an activation roll and likely has at least one roll for combat resolution.  That's a lot of time spent finding empty space to roll and looking up/remembering results.  If I'm going to get players in a strategic but not deterministic game, I'm going to need fewer rolls.  This triggered an idea.

It's not quite a war game, but hopefully still compact and strategic.  The thought is that players run horse stables.  They start with a a small herd of average horses, a small stable and a small pasture.  From their they can enter horses in races, breed their horses to grow their herd, or sell horses.  The core mechanism is the breeding mechanic.  Each horse is assigned a singular quality that stays with them their entire life.  When they are paired with another horse for breeding, the sum of both horses' quality scores are added to a 2D6 roll.  This determines the quality of their offspring.

A player trying to win through racing victories will likely keep a small number of high quality horses, while a player trying to win through market/contract sales will need a lot of horses and varying qualities.  Because a horse can only do one action per turn, there should be some good strategic decisions about horse allocatons.

Winter Break: A Beary Simple Wargame

 A Beary Simple Wargame made it out of the box today. My daughter set out the terrain while I cleaned up lunch and we played while the boys took their naps. I didn’t grab any other pics but the game featured both armies moving up to the center and slugging it out. Her artillery scored some good shots from range early. My general (grenadier caps) failed to rally the scared bears which made my counterattack much less effective. Eventually, her cavalry were able to team with the line infantry and break my lines from the flanks.  

The game was easy enough for a clever 6 year old to understand and make strategic decisions. She managed her turns independently, but we did discuss advantages of potential attacks before committing. She did the addition of advantages and subtraction of the dice. Well count it as education. 

Dominion of the Spear Army Builder

 It seems that the new hotness is a series of rules by Steve Parker starting with The Dominion of the Spear and having expanded to cover several other periods.  I have not yet pulled the trigger on purchasing a copy myself but, I have enjoyed reading others’ experiences with the rules.  I think that the models I have designed would work exceptionally well with the philosophy behind the series of rules.  

Early18th Century through Late 19th Century Line Infantry

One of the key aspects of The Dominion of the XXX series is an extrapolation of detail in favor of fast-play.  By using general battlefield areas instead of measurement in distances or grids, the games can feel almost more like a board game than a map-based war game.  The models I have designed fit the more game and less simulation mind-set of these games.  My models are not for “button counters”.  I didn't bother modeling faces, let alone buttons. They give an impression of massed forces while being cheap to produce, easy to paint, and not being too precious to use in gaming. They are chunky enough to be easily grabbed by even the clumsiest of players.  

My models are designed to be incredibly rugged compared to standard miniatures.  I have test dropped my models by dropping from tables many times.  Some of my initial attempts with spears would occasionally result in broken spears, but the musket/rifle/sword units have never broken when dropped from table height.  I have thrown them against concrete and still not broken them.  They’re just too light to build up much momentum.  The most vulnerable part of them are the paint jobs.  I apply a very liberal coating of clear cote to mitigate damage to the painting.  

I have fully designed ranges from the early 18th Century though the end of the 19th Century. I have partial ranges ready for Roman/Hellenic armies. My models also work well The Portable Wargame, One Hour Wargames, and other simplified wargames.  If anyone is interested in an army of your own, please reach out. Being a single person operation, I don’t have any other websites or sales platforms. 

New Bear Range Kicked Off

 

In my dwindling free time, I sometimes think about ranges I would finish if there were interest.  I’m more likely to have a free 10 minute block where I can design something on the computer than a whole hour or two to get a game set up and played through. 

The 18th Century Bears have made it to the table, Roadster Bears have been started and not finished.  I had been working on a racing game suitable for young kids, but it has stalled (pun very much intended). I've been tossing around the idea of a more character based skirmish game for a while. Cowboys seems to fit that theme well. There seems to be lots of opportunity for escort missions, searching for treasure, capturing key locations, and driving off enemies. It’ll being more narrative, it might also spur some writing prompts for my imaginative daughter who is very excited to write. 

If I continue down this path, these will be the most articulated and varied models I will have designed. 

Getting the Bears on the Table

 

Initial Deployment 

We recently moved houses (for the last time). My daughter asked to get the bears out, so of course I obliged her. We played a quick hunt for the honey game. Her bears were tasked with exploring the buildings and searching for honey. My bears knew where the honey was and were tasked with defending the honey. She lost 3 of 5 infantry units, but eventually found all 3 honey caches. 

She did ridicule me for bringing unpainted terrain to the table. I guess I’ll have to fix that. 

Bear Terrain

 

Above is are first three structures and some forest for A Beary Simple Wargame.  They will be primed and painted in the same glossy style as the Bear Units.  The prevailing architecture of the region is sandy stucco colored walls with terra cotta tile roof and bright trim. 

Other ideas for buildings/terrain: 

The Brew'n Bruin:  A coffee shop, teahouse, or tavern.  This would be noted by having a sign in the gable.  

Other stores: Book in gable for library, jars/boxes for grocer

Rivers, Bridges: modular sections, straight, corner, bridge, ford

Driving Bears pt.2

As a parent, I should have known that if I made a toy/game for one kid, I'd have to make something completely different for the other.  My son is currently a big fan of racecars.  I quickly mocked up a 1930's - 1940's US roadster and dropped the bear in.  

The entire roadster currently fits in a 1.25" x .75" grid.  This seems big enough to put enough spaces on the table and still have a decently large movement piece.  The car has a 1/2" square hole where the bear sits. This would (theoretically) allow bears to change cars.  Possibly players could sell cars and/or hire different racers to drop into their cars.  

I'm floating between two rough ideas for the game itself.  My first thought was to take a game like Chariot Race, Ave Caesar, or Charioteer and adapt it for early roadsters.  Racers would roll speed and control dice based on base scores and their current gear.  Successes on speed dice allow the car to move forward.  Control dice would allow a car to change direction as part of a movement.  

The other idea is to create a "never ending straight away" race track where as players complete a segment, a new segment is added to the front of the board.  Segments would be filled with obstacles, bonuses and surprises.  The board would be similar in mechanics to Thunder Road: Vendetta, but much more silly.

The benefit of having the complete circuit as part of the starting condition of the game is that it allows cars to make pitstops.  I imagine that both game ideas would have cars receiving damage and becoming slower, less maneuverable, or less controllable.  A multi-lap race gives players at least a few chances to make pitstops.  The never ending straight away allows for more customization in game length and would allow more creative obstacles/events to be added as the players become more advanced.